News releases

Friends of the Earth statement on the IPCC Mitigation Report

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published the third installment of its Fifth Assessment Report relating to mitigation strategies for addressing climate change.

Friends of the Earth’s Climate and energy program director Ben Schreiber has issued the following statement in response to the report:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggests that current levels of climate action put the planet on pace for up to 5°C of warming by the year 2100. It is clear on the need for an emissions budget for climate pollution to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Time is running out, but we can still alter our current trajectory before it leads to climate disaster. Unfortunately, even as the world’s leading scientists are laying out the need for urgent action, the political leaders at the negotiating table remain unwilling to commit to the steps necessary. The United States is the largest historic contributor of greenhouse gas emissions and so must lead by example. Yet President Obama is touting an “all of the above” energy policy that is incompatible with the overwhelming evidence that we must leave fossil fuels in the ground. Coal and natural gas have no place in our climate constrained world.

Rather than address climate change in a just manner, some governments have pressured the IPCC to encourage technological miracles like geoengineering in its summary for policy makers. It is unconscionable to slow down the transition to renewable energy in the hope that convenient solutions will materialize from the ether.